politicians will be able to clinch a deal to avoid that fiscal cliff. london's ftse 100 is up right now by 0.2%. we see the frankfurt market moving ahead, up about a percent. paris's cac 40 seeing gains of 0.3%. earlier in asian trading, share prices were largely mixed. there was some profit-taking from yesterday's gains. had more optimistic views about the u.s. economy keeping stocks from falling any further, though. the nikkei ended above that key 9,500 level for the first time since april. the shanghai composite edged down just over 0.1% after a pretty sharp rebound yesterday. south korea's kospi also managing gains. it closed higher by more than 0.1%. that put it at a seven-week high. let's move on to currencies now. dollar/yen right now is a little higher, seeing it at 82.35. market observers say investors are buying the dollar on optimism about the u.s. budget talks, but its advance has been capped today as many traders do remain on the sidelines ahead of u.s. jobs data, which is due out on friday. now, in terms of the euro, it's still holding pre